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May 28, 2009

SF Examiner: A Precycling Guide

Wondering how to get the Examiner to stop cluttering your doorstep? So is Rebekah:

I was hoping you could help me with a problem. I tried looking on [the Examiner's] site & the only thing I did was put myself on vacation for 7 years. What did you do to get them to stop delivery to you? It sits in front of my building for over a week until I get frustrated with it & recycle the lot.

Can you include some information about what to do if you live in a building with other people? When I wrote to them to say I was on "vacation" I didn't give them a specific apartment number hoping they would be fooled.

Here's how to get rid of it: fill out this form weekly with increasingly annoyed comments. 4-5 weeks should do it. If that doesn't work, Bevan Dufty has asked people to call or email him for help stopping the evil paperb...er...guy in a car. Assuming that all works, expect the SFE to show up every couple months anyway.

And if you live in a multi-unit building? Either get everyone to fill out the same form, or else include all apartments in the request (good luck with that). At the very least, maybe your neighbors can help clean up the mess of papers and menus....

If the SFE won't stop delivering (and you're tired of stepping over it on your way inside), here's what to do with the Examiner while you fight with the circulation desk. Never mind the old standards (clean the windows, line the birdcage, insulate your drafty Victorian) there are plenty of other uses:

4
comments:

I was able to stop this relatively quickly within about 3 weeks with two emails.

The first said please stop. Your paper is unwelcome, immediately goes in the trash and is a tripping hazard on the sidewalk. If I am sued by someone being injured on the sidewalk I have a copy of this email and my insurance company will address this with the paper.

2 weeks later, repeat the email and forward the original email request. Draw attention to the fact that this the second request in a very irritated fashion.

Two days later no paper. Occasionally, one shows up but nothing in the last year. Good luck to everyone!

What's with the plastic bags anyway? Because you can just grab the paper and dump it in the recycle bin, but have to unwrap it first, I bet a lot of them go in the regular trash. Hello, it's almost June...it's not going to rain.

What infuriates me most about the Examiner litter is that their fake circulation numbers enable them to get valuable legal notice advertising. I can't help but think that if the SF Chronicle had those contracts we might have a real newspaper a little longer in this town.

I use the paper's Plastic Lining to pick-up my little Dog's Poo.Actually, I use my neighbor's paper (who never picks it up), because I was succesful at stopping our paper delivery, just by calling once to the subscription phone and asking them to stop, that is until the paper actually reflects SF versus some place conservative like Colorado Springs. She was very nice, and actually laughed at the way I put it! 1-866-733-7323.I just found this URL to stop the Paper:http://intranet.dcexaminer.com/examinerintranet/stopdeliveryreq_sf.cfm